Deposits and cancellation rights: what installers need to get right

Key Takeaways

Most installs are sold in the customer's home, which triggers statutory cancellation rights
In the UK that's a 14-day cancellation period; in the US it's the FTC's 3-day cooling-off rule, plus state rules
Take a deposit before the period is handled correctly and you may be unable to keep it
Starting work early is allowed, but only with the customer's express, written request
A signed quote with the right cancellation notice and a timestamped acceptance is your evidence the clock was handled

Get the cancellation notice onto every quote

The rules below only protect you if the cancellation terms are on the document the customer signs, every time. Book a 20-minute demo to see how Payaca attaches your terms, captures a timestamped e-signature, and triggers the deposit invoice in the right order.

A deposit protects your cash flow and filters out tyre-kickers. But for most clean-energy installers the sale happens in the customer's living room or over a video call, and that changes the legal picture. The moment you sell away from your own premises, the customer gets a statutory right to cancel. Take the deposit without dealing with that right first, and the deposit isn't as safe as it feels.

This isn't legal advice, and the detail varies by jurisdiction. But the shape of the problem is the same on both sides of the Atlantic, and the fix is mostly about paperwork and sequence.

Why selling at the kitchen table changes the rules

When a customer buys in a shop, they've chosen to walk in. When you sell in their home, the law assumes they may have been caught on the back foot, so it gives them a window to change their mind. Almost every solar, heat pump, battery and EV charger sale falls into this category, because the survey and the sign-off happen at the property.

That window exists whether or not you mention it. What you control is whether you've handled it properly, because the penalty for getting it wrong lands on you, not the customer.

The UK position: 14 days

Under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, a contract agreed in the customer's home (an "off-premises" contract) or at a distance gives the consumer 14 days to cancel for any reason. You must give them written notice of that right, including a cancellation form.

Two things catch installers out:

If you don't give the cancellation notice, the period extends. The 14 days can stretch to up to 12 months. For most of that time the customer can walk away and reclaim what they've paid, even after work has started.

You can't just start work inside the 14 days. If the customer wants you to begin sooner, you need their express request to do so, in a durable form such as writing or email. Without it, you may not be able to charge for work or materials if they later cancel.

The US position: 3 days, plus state rules

The Federal Trade Commission's Cooling-Off Rule gives buyers three business days to cancel a sale of $25 or more made at their home (or anywhere that isn't the seller's permanent place of business). You have to give the buyer two copies of a cancellation form and tell them about the right.

On top of the federal rule, many states add their own protections for home-improvement and solar contracts, and some run longer than three days. Because clean-energy work is regulated state by state, the safe assumption is that a home sale carries a cancellation right, and your contract should say so explicitly.

How the two compare

	UK	US (federal)
Trigger	Sold off-premises or at a distance	Sold at the buyer's home, $25+
Window	14 days	3 business days
Notice required	Written cancellation notice + form	Two copies of a cancellation form
Penalty for no notice	Period extends up to 12 months	Sale is voidable, deposit refundable
Starting work early	Allowed with express written request	Buyer must waive in writing where permitted

Getting the deposit sequence right

The deposit itself is fine. It's the order of operations that protects it:

Put the cancellation terms on the quote, not in a separate email the customer never opens. The document they sign should state their right to cancel and how to do it.
Get a clear, recorded acceptance. A signature with a timestamp tells you exactly when the contract was formed and when the clock started.
If they want you to start inside the window, capture the request in writing. A line they tick or sign, acknowledging they've asked you to begin and understand they may owe you for work done if they cancel.
Invoice the deposit against the accepted quote, so the payment is tied to the document that carries the terms.

Do this and a cancellation becomes a clean, rare event rather than a dispute. Skip it and you're relying on goodwill to keep money the customer may be legally entitled to reclaim.

Where software helps

The failure mode is almost never that an installer doesn't know the rules. It's that at 20 or 30 installs a month, the terms get attached to some quotes and not others, acceptances are verbal, and nobody can say for certain when a given customer signed.

Software fixes the consistency problem. When your terms are attached to every quote automatically, acceptance is captured as a timestamped e-signature, and the deposit invoice only fires once the quote is accepted, the evidence trail builds itself. You're not chasing paperwork after the fact, because the sequence is baked into how every job is sold. That's the difference between knowing your rights and being able to prove you handled them.